The present invention relates to articles and methods for supplying softening and antistatic benefits to fabrics in an automatic clothes washer and/or dryer. The articles comprise a double layered porous receptacle releasably containing a fabric softener/antistat composition.
Treating fabrics in an automatic clothes dryer has recently been shown to be an effective means for conditioning and imparting desirable tactile properties thereto. In particular, it is becoming common to soften fabrics in an automatic clothes dryer rather than during the rinse cycle of a laundering operation. Treating fabrics in the dryer, rather than in the wash, has enabled the formulator of fabric conditioners to develop and use materials which may not be compatible with detergents when added as a powder to the wash. Moreover, the user of dryer-added conditioners is not compelled to make the special effort required with many rinse-added products.
Although dryer-added conditioners have solved some of the problems inherent in wash- or rinse-added conditioners, there still remains the need to improve performance and increase convenience. The ability to add an improved conditioning article at the start of the wash cycle would supply such benefits.
The use of fabric conditioning materials in detergent compositions or other compositions intended for use at the start of the wash cycle has long been attempted. However, as indicated above, these attempts have met with only modest success due to incompatibility of the actives with the detergent materials or inefficient attachment of the actives to the treated fabrics. The softening and antistatic performance of such prior art compositions falls short of the performance obtained from rinse cycle added or dryer cycle added compositions.
The present invention is based on the discovery that fabrics can receive softening and antistatic benefits from a porous article containing a softener/antistat composition while being treated in an automatic clothes washer and/or dryer. Superior conditioning benefits are achieved while offering significant additional convenience.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide articles which can be added to a clothes washer and/or dryer to condition fabrics in a superior manner concurrently with a washer and/or dryer operation.
It is a further object herein to provide methods for conditioning fabrics.
These and other objects will become obvious from the following disclosure.